No, no. You are quiet wrong on that account. This is a very dear issue to me, so let me get into a little more detail.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elysia

The idea is that the entire page will be enlarged, thus avoiding problems.

It creates all sorts of problems. CSS based design using some of the most fundamental tools as Positioning and Flow is dependent on the choice of fixed or scalable units. If the coder chooses a fixed unit it is because they don't want that element to be scaled. And more often than not, they base their design on that decision. Other elements on the page may have scalable units on their own and the mix of the two is a powerful design feature that allows for the coder to control how the page elements should behave when enlarged.

The above is concerning Web Accessibility Standards. But there's also simple design decisions; The more complex liquid page layouts depend on a careful choice of dimension unit types for them to work. It's common for these layouts to employ both unit types and flow correctly as the user reduces or enlarges the browser viewport. On the presence of a full zoom feature, their decision concerning those elements where fixed units where used is broken. Suddenly their liquid layout just doesn't work (and has no hope of working) when the user scales the contents sometimes even if by one increment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elysia

Scaling just text will create problems when it won't fit.

Scaling text has been at the heart of web accessibility decisions. It always worked. What some designers choose to do is to compromise in the presence of some layouts like the one shown on my previous post. That is, they allow for a certain degree of text enlargement until the layout gets broken. This has always been like this and unless a webpage is made up of just text flowing from left to right and up to bottom, most layouts will eventually break at higher levels of text enlargement.

It's a conscious decision, not a bug in the HTML/CSS code. And it derives from the limitations of the languages themselves as well as the limitations of computer screen sizes (a larger resolution will allow for bigger enlargements without breaking the layout).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elysia

I haven't had a single webpage looking bad because of full page zoom, but I've had plenty looking wrong with text zoom.

I'm not sure what to say here other than you perhaps are distracted. First it is not true, for all the reasons above, unless FF3 new zoom feature creates horizontal scroll. Second it can be true only in the sense few designers worry about web accessibility and thus do not predict text enlargement usage patterns when coding their sites which definitely breaks most layouts as soon as a user enlarges the text. EDIT: But this also breaks in the presence of zoom equally.

The thing to retain here is that this is just not me being picky about a zoom feature. It is much more than that. It touches the core of webpage coding decisions. One cannot code for a zoom feature simply because the HTML/CSS combination doesn't offer the tools to handle different image sizes. Again, providing the example on my previous post I have no way whatsoever short of using javascript to handle the new image and surrounding div dimensions when the user zooms the page, as opposed to enlarging the text which CSS offers plenty of tools.

To conclude on another note however, this is not to say Zoom is not a good feature. It is indeed. But the problem in Opera is the fact it is the only feature which simply means Opera in non standard in this issue. If Opera allowed for text enlargement only, with our without a Zoom feature, I wouldn't be here having this conversation.

06-18-2008

Mario F.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thantos

Zooming images is essential when doing certain types of surfing ;)

Ah! Good one! :D

Anyways, hope I made myself clear on the previous post. It's not that I don't like a zoom feature. I do. But it really needs a text enlargement only feature too. Just that.

06-18-2008

indigo0086

run->magnify ;[

But scale/zoom fonts most of the time because I don't want to strain my eyes with a lot of these sites that try to be all stylistic and make tiny fonts. I also scale the text in my windows environment a bit as well. I think if the customer wants to mess up the page to see the content better, it's up to them. I just hate when sites force it on you.

06-18-2008

Elysia

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mario F.

It creates all sorts of problems. CSS based design using some of the most fundamental tools as Positioning and Flow is dependent on the choice of fixed or scalable units. If the coder chooses a fixed unit it is because they don't want that element to be scaled. And more often than not, they base their design on that decision. Other elements on the page may have scalable units on their own and the mix of the two is a powerful design feature that allows for the coder to control how the page elements should behave when enlarged.

The above is concerning Web Accessibility Standards. But there's also simple design decisions; The more complex liquid page layouts depend on a careful choice of dimension unit types for them to work. It's common for these layouts to employ both unit types and flow correctly as the user reduces or enlarges the browser viewport. On the presence of a full zoom feature, their decision concerning those elements where fixed units where used is broken. Suddenly their liquid layout just doesn't work (and has no hope of working) when the user scales the contents sometimes even if by one increment.

This is all good and well, but... The Zoom Feature is basically like making a picture of the entire layout and enlarging that picture, then compressing the sides to fit inside the window.
So basically, if the position is fixed at, say, pixel 100, then, when scaled, it's set at, say, pixel 110. All things are scaled, not just font or images or text. Otherwise it would be flawed.

I do understand what you're trying to say. I once tried to make a page layout scale with resolution, but the layout remaining the same. But that doesn't say I can't make everything on that page 10&#37; larger. That's what a Full Page Zoom should do and that's what's so handy.

Quote:

Scaling text has been at the heart of web accessibility decisions. It always worked. What some designers choose to do is to compromise in the presence of some layouts like the one shown on my previous post. That is, they allow for a certain degree of text enlargement until the layout gets broken. This has always been like this and unless a webpage is made up of just text flowing from left to right and up to bottom, most layouts will eventually break at higher levels of text enlargement.

It's a conscious decision, not a bug in the HTML/CSS code. And it derives from the limitations of the languages themselves as well as the limitations of computer screen sizes (a larger resolution will allow for bigger enlargements without breaking the layout).

It is also a flaw, because it cannot expand indefinitely, whereas Full Page Zoom can because it enlarges everything, so the layout will remain the same.

Quote:

I'm not sure what to say here other than you perhaps are distracted. First it is not true, for all the reasons above, unless FF3 new zoom feature creates horizontal scroll. Second it can be true only in the sense few designers worry about web accessibility and thus do not predict text enlargement usage patterns when coding their sites which definitely breaks most layouts as soon as a user enlarges the text.

The thing to retain here is that this is just not me being picky about a zoom feature. It is much more than that. It touches the core of webpage coding decisions. One cannot code for a zoom feature simply because the HTML/CSS combination doesn't offer the tools to handle different image sizes. Again, providing the example on my previous post I have no way whatsoever short of using javascript to handle the new image and surrounding div dimensions when the user zooms the page, as opposed to enlarging the text which CSS offers plenty of tools.

Did you try FF3's zoom feature?
Perhaps then you could say for certain if the implementation is good or bad, but I have found it be good, even if it creates headaches for the devs.

Quote:

To conclude on another note however, this is not to say Zoom is not a good feature. It is indeed. But the problem in Opera is the fact it is the only feature which simply means Opera in non standard in this issue. If Opera allowed for text enlargement only, with our without a Zoom feature, I wouldn't be here having this conversation.

Funny to think, then, that FF has also adopted Full Page zoom now. Indeed, it's been a much sought feature. To my knowledge, anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by indigo0086

But scale/zoom fonts most of the time because I don't want to strain my eyes with a lot of these sites that try to be all stylistic and make tiny fonts. I also scale the text in my windows environment a bit as well. I think if the customer wants to mess up the page to see the content better, it's up to them. I just hate when sites force it on you.

I couldn't agree more.
In the end, it's the end user that's browsing the page and so it's logical that we should have the choice to display it as we wish.
Small text everywhere and banners in most inappropriate places annoy me greatly. Thankfully Full Page Zoom solves the text problem.

06-18-2008

stevesmithx

Quote:

Originally Posted by laserlight

Actually, I was wondering if their servers would not be able to cope with the load, and they finally manage to fix the problem only after the download day is over. That would be funny... but it looks like it's not happening.

Elysia, I'll make this clearer to you. I hope you understand this time... It annoys me when you don't read. It annoys me even more because you are insisting on something that is false. Don't do it.

Ok... here it goes...

1.HTML/CSS doesn't provide the tools to handle different image sizes. Only different text sizes. So no, you are wrong. Text enlargement is not a flaw. It's the only tool.

2. Zoom doesn't retain the layout unless it means you gain horizontal scroll. Does FF3 gain horizontal scroll when you enlarge past a certain point? If the context flows inside the browser viewport is means it too will break the layout sooner or later as you keep zooming. Just like with text enlargement. With one complication, because the images also get bigger, the layout will break sooner.

3. Zoom feature is not different than Text Enlargement except for the fact it also scales images. The zoom feature spurs from the need to also enlarge images, something that webpage coders cannot give. Text enlargement was already providing content flow and adjustment to different sizes long before Zooming was made available.

Finally, yes apparently FF3 introduced the zoom feature too from what I hear. I'm all for it. Indigo mentioned quiet correctly, it is the user decision. But don't tell me it's better than text enlargement. It is not because there are no tools in the web designer arsenal to handle it. Consequently it is left to chance what will happen at different resolutions and different layouts.

06-18-2008

indigo0086

I guess it depends, if you're interested more in the content than the layout, given that zooming doesn't interfere with the flow of the content, then I don't mind. I've never encountered significant issues with zooming as I read mainly forums and....um...well...DON'T JUDGE ME!

06-18-2008

whiteflags

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elysia

This is all good and well, but... The Zoom Feature is basically like making a picture of the entire layout and enlarging that picture, then compressing the sides to fit inside the window.

So basically, if the position is fixed at, say, pixel 100, then, when scaled, it's set at, say, pixel 110. All things are scaled, not just font or images or text. Otherwise it would be flawed.

But every picture is different and you can't just inflate the size of certain images. That makes them blurry, plus you end up with pixels the size of dinner plates. Try it with any photo you have on your computer: you can't just put more image where there wasn't before at a certain point. (This might be changing with vector formats, but that's quite beside the point.)

Sometimes you want that, eh Thantos? :D

Anyway, speaking as a designer, IMO, text enlargement is the way to go. I don't mean to constantly disagree but frankly it's easy for me to design a page where you can increment font size two or three times without breaking the page. I can't do squat if you make the images all fugly.

06-18-2008

Elysia

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mario F.

Elysia, I'll make this clearer to you. I hope you understand this time... It annoys me when you don't read. It annoys me even more because you are insisting on something that is false. Don't do it.

Then your explanation was insufficient and created false impressions. Don't blame it on me.

Quote:

1.HTML/CSS doesn't provide the tools to handle different image sizes. Only different text sizes. So no, you are wrong. Text enlargement is not a flaw. It's the only tool.

No, in that case, HTML/CSS is flawed, because if the text increases, the images must too, otherwise you break the original layout.

Quote:

2. Zoom doesn't retain the layout unless it means you gain horizontal scroll. Does FF3 gain horizontal scroll when you enlarge past a certain point? If the context flows inside the browser viewport is means it too will break the layout sooner or later as you keep zooming. Just like with text enlargement. With one complication, because the images also get bigger, the layout will break sooner.

It expands in all directions; horizontally too.
However, if there's blank space available, Firefox will consume it and compact the view to fit inside the current window size. Naturally, if there's no blank space, it cannot compact it.

Quote:

3. Zoom feature is not different than Text Enlargement except for the fact it also scales images. The zoom feature spurs from the need to also enlarge images, something that webpage coders cannot give. Text enlargement was already providing content flow and adjustment to different sizes long before Zooming was made available.

Whatever it does, it is irrelevant, because the entire page is zoomed.
The text flow and layout is preserved.
I don't claim to know what it does because I haven't looked at the source.

Quote:

Finally, yes apparently FF3 introduced the zoom feature too from what I hear. I'm all for it. Indigo mentioned quiet correctly, it is the user decision. But don't tell me it's better than text enlargement. It is not because there are no tools in the web designer arsenal to handle it. Consequently it is left to chance what will happen at different resolutions and different layouts.

It is better because it doesn't break text flow and layout, which text flow very often does.
If this is due to programmer ignorance, then so be it. But until I see that text zooming is better practical than full page zooming, I will say the latter is better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by indigo0086

I guess it depends, if you're interested more in the content than the layout, given that zooming doesn't interfere with the flow of the content, then I don't mind. I've never encountered significant issues with zooming as I read mainly forums and....um...well...DON'T JUDGE ME!

I have been to many other sites than forums and full page zoom has always worked well.
So what you say is true. It keeps the layout and flow.

Quote:

Originally Posted by citizen

But every picture is different and you can't just inflate the size of certain images. That makes them blurry, plus you end up with pixels the size of dinner plates. Try it with any photo you have on your computer: you can't just put more image where there wasn't before at a certain point. (This might be changing with vector formats, but that's quite beside the point.)

This may be an unfortunate problem (that I'm aware of), and call for that developers put higher resolution images on the web.
Too many are putting an unrealistically small font on today's pages, so I'd say it's necessary.

06-18-2008

Mario F.

I give up :(
Closed.

06-18-2008

GanglyLamb

Haha Mario F , I already gave up on page 2 of this thread :p. I was actually surprised it lasted this long :D

06-18-2008

Thantos

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mario F.

I give up :(
Closed.

Don't give up on the pr0n through!

06-18-2008

BMJ

With the growing interest in WebKit I doubt there will ever be a Firefox 4.

Thank god. :)

06-18-2008

Elysia

Don't give up hopes or pray to a non-existent being ;)
I'll be there will be Firefox 4!
Thank the stars the Firefox lineage will continue!

06-18-2008

whiteflags

I thought I'd put this out there.

>> This may be an unfortunate problem (that I'm aware of), and call for that developers put
>> higher resolution images on the web.

You still need to download them. There are whole countries out there without fast internet access, where computers are becoming prevalent. South Africa is one example. Another example is a problem statistically: my own country was recently placed 24th in broadband penetration around the world, connecting to just over half the population. Check your newspaper for a similar story. Depending on what the content is supposed to be you can't even afford to make a page too heavy, because of the audience. If the people who are interested in your information can't get it you've failed.

And that doesn't even really address physical problems. Monitors are limited to 72ppi resolution anyway, no matter how big your screen is. Higher resolutions don't always make a visible difference.

>> Too many are putting an unrealistically small font on today's pages, so I'd say it's necessary

I never disagreed. I just prefer my solution to the problem. If the consequences for graphical web pages aren't a reason to dislike your solution than you really can't expect your opinion, based on a similar objection, to be more meritous. Photographers would be ........ed if your solution was the only solution.